Customers will permanently face less choice in British restaurants and supermarkets because of a crippling shortage in lorry drivers which has hammered companies across Europe, the boss of the country’s biggest food trade body has warned.
Ian Wright, head of the Food and Drink Federation, said that a combination of the pandemic and post-Brexit disruption means that consumers must get used to the end of an era when “just about every product they want” was easily available.
Mr Wright said: “That’s over. And I don’t think it’s coming back.”
Do consumers desire such choice? Are hey willing to pay for it – the true definition of really desire? Then prices will adjust so that lorry driver wages rise to where there are sufficient lorry drivers to produce that variety.
Further, if prices don’t so adjust then this is proof that consumers don’t in fact want that choice.
That is, it’s not that consumers will have to get used to not getting what they want. The entire joy of a market economy is that consumers get what they really do want, the definition of really do being are willing to pay for.
On the plus side I got really lazy with breakfast and was having the same thing everyday until Lidl ran out of Greek style yogurt. Now I’ve rediscovered the joy of a variety of different breakfasts.
So its not Brexit, good to know.
And those extra lorry drivers won’t fix the lack of containers problem:
The other problem is that people are scared to move jobs. Why would you give up the job you are in, probably moved to after the lockdowns went on forever, when the government is threatening lockdowns again and risk not qualifying for furlough and/or redundancy payments because you haven’t been in the job long enough?
Isn’t the big problem with lorry drivers that the government hasn’t been doing enough tests over lockdown (and, at times, banned lessons)? So it’s not a market problem, it’s a government one, and they’re more difficult to solve.
Haven’t “they” being telling us for years that we shouldn’t be demanding year-round food, but should be going back to seasonality in food supplies. For The Planet!
This thought occured to be as I debauched on blackberries, which I only eat in any significance at this time of year when I gather them from field hedges.
Yawn. Just another attempt to boost the import of cheap labour. And I’m sure Blue Labour will capitulate once the COVID fear is over.
Talking of that, I see lockdowns and mask enforcement are on the agenda again. But not any measures to increase NHS capacity.
What MC said…
a crippling shortage in lorry drivers
Can’t reach the pedals?
A male A&E nurse at a local hospital was told his employment would end if he was not double vaccinated. His request for information on what the vaccine contained was refused. He has now qualified as an LGV driver, making more money than he did as a charge nurse. No shifts; no stroppy, drunken, patients; and he gets to see his family more often. Apparently, more hospital staff, male and female, are considering similar career changes.
The hospital, facing an acute shortage of medical staff, are advertising for several department managers. We are living in a Kafkaesque world.
I heard the skinny on the lorry driver shortage from a lorry driving mate of mine recently. He reckons the reason the Eastern European drivers have upped sticks and left is that a lot of them have been running their work through personal service companies and via agencies, and have used Covid as a suitable time to do a flit from the country and not pay the taxes dues on their company. The timing kind of makes sense, small companies pay their tax 9 months after the year end, so if your year end was 31st March then all the tax for 2019/20 would have been due on 1st Jan 2021. So Pavlov could work all of 2020, and some of 2021 (as its unlikely that anyone would have come chasing him if he missed the January 2021 payment date, there was a lockdown on). Then once the lockdown ended then do a runner with all the profits from April 2019 to April 2021, never to be seen again. Also probably taking a bounce back loan with him, probably for the max £50k. This would explain why was no lorry driver shortage last year (when Brexit actually happened) but one has manifested this year when there’s no obvious reason for Eastern Europeans to leave.
He also said that the way lorry drivers were treated during the lockdowns has caused many older drivers to give up and retire. None of the collection or delivery sites would allow drivers to use any facilities, toilets etc, they didn’t even put temporary portaloos in or anything. So drivers were forced to piss in bottles and shit in bushes because they literally had nowhere to go when out on the road. He said loads of drivers close to retirement have just said ‘Fuck this for game of soldiers’ and retired.
@Jim, your account rings true but with one quibble-ette – you have to make a down-payment in advance of the year end on your CT, compliments to the one-eyed Scotsman. You still save on at least half the tax payment.
As another consideration, round here in Southern France, there seems to be a trend for constructing public artworks out of containers. Around Perpignan, it looks as if an entire suburb has been built out of them, stacked into blocks
“one quibble-ette – you have to make a down-payment in advance of the year end on your CT, compliments to the one-eyed Scotsman. You still save on at least half the tax payment.”
Is that not only for companies with profits over £1.5m? From the Gov.uk website:
The deadline for your payment will depend on your taxable profits.
Taxable profits of up to £1.5 million
You must pay your Corporation Tax 9 months and 1 day after the end of your accounting period. Your accounting period is usually your financial year, but you may have 2 accounting periods in the year you set up your company.
Fair cop, Jim. My mind must have been thinking about self-employed drivers rather than corporates
@Penseivat – “His request for information on what the vaccine contained was refused. ”
Well, that’s very strange, since the official patient information leaflet (see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approval-of-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca/patient-information-leaflet-for-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca for the one for the Oxford/AstraZenica one) contains exactly that information in section 6.
But it seems that people who say they want to know what is in a vaccine before taking it very seldom actually want to know – as proven by their lack of personal research and what they do if given what they ask for. It seems that it’s generally just a delaying tactic to avoid admitting they have some irrational reason for refusing.